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An Archaic Sumerian Version of the Kesh Temple Hymn from Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh

Biggs, Robert D.
;^ An Archaic Sumerian Version of the Kesh Temple Hymn from Teil Abu Saläbikh By Robert D. Biggs -- Chicago For Professor Richard T. Hallock on his sixty-fifth birthday It has been only in the past few years that cuneiformists have recognized that among the so-called "school texts" from Fara1 there are some which are not word lists, but rather literary compositions.2 This was a somewhat surprising discovery, since the generally accepted view was that the written Sumerian literary tradition was late and that until near the end of the third millennium B.C. the cuneiform script was used ahnost exclusively for recording contracts, receipts and expenditures, with the sign lists and word lists serving the practical purpose of familiarizing the scribes with the words they needed in their everyday work.3 That the literary texts of this period, about the 27th and 20th centuries B.C., were unrecognized for so long is due to the fact^that they present formidable obstacles to compjrehension.4 Published by A. Deimel, Schultexte aus Fara (Die Inschriften von Fara, vol. 2), Leipzig, 1923, and R. Jestin, Tablettes sumeriennes de Suruppak, Paris, 1937, and Nouvelles tablettes sumeriennes de Suruppak, Paris, 1957. 2 A saying or proverb which
http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.pngZeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologiede Gruyterhttp://www.deepdyve.com/lp/de-gruyter/an-archaic-sumerian-version-of-the-kesh-temple-hymn-from-tell-ab-al-b-UDU6yHuFgR